The Chasm – A Conscious Creation From The Isolated Domain – Phase I Review

Trying to put words to the wordless is something I never thought I’d find myself tackling with regard to Chicago’s The Chasm. Yet here I sit, trying to put words to the wordless.

Who the hell comes back from a protracted eight year interval with an hour long instrumental death metal album? The Chasm, my dears. The Chasm. The same band that has shown a broad lack of concern for death metal’s often strict confines since…well, nearly day one.

But death metal without a monster bellowing unintelligible words concerning demise, devils or even cookies? That’s like protons without electrons, M & nothings, extra cash sans the free time to spend it, or Ren with positively no Stimpy in sight.

Suffice to say, if you count yourself a fan of The Chasm—and if you consider yourself a serious devotee of death metal, why on earth wouldn’t you—the likelihood is pretty strong that you found yourself suddenly (and surprisingly) faced with an unfamiliar pang of apprehension upon discovering that the ironically wordy A Conscious Creation from the Isolated Domain – Phase I was slated to be instrumental.

What’s perhaps stranger, however, particularly to outsiders looking in, is the notion that many of us seem so concerned about the vocal element in the first place—shout out a single lyric from a previous Chasm record off the top of your head and I’ll eat my hat encased in pimento loaf. But founding member Daniel Corchado’s raspy delivery has always been a great benefit to the band, even if it’s difficult to discern his cosmic portents, so we like to hear him gnarl. And similar to umpteen death metal acts that came before these guys, the bark is often as vital an instrument as the guitar, bass and drums, which we can now officially refer to as “The Tardy Effect.” Ergo, thinking about death metal without vocals is very weird. Period.

Nonetheless, if ever there was a band that could deliver such an oddity, it would be The Chasm, because this particular creature lives to RIFF above all else, and it hungers to beat your shivery bones to dust with pummeling drums. No voiced command or accompaniment is necessary to execute objectives such as this. Hell, they nearly went voiceless in 2009 with Farseeing the Paranormal Abysm.

In 2017, the now trimmed duo of Corchado (guitar, bass and “FX”) and Antonio León (drums—and he absolutely kills it throughout this record) have decided to finally go the extra mile, and in the interest of saluting their voiceless chutzpah, consider the following series of photos that suitably epitomize the aggregate impression of A Conscious Creation from the Isolated Domain – Phase I.

+

=

Dark
Complex
Classic
Time-bending
Raw
Atmospheric
Outstanding
Thrashy
Synthy
Riffy
Shreddy
Pulverizing
Otherworldly
Ominous
Wordless
What-the-fuckery

Those are some words. I’m not saying you have to attach said words to this record—I’m fairly certain that might be verboten—so do with them as you please. Credit them to the dog, or that pretentious growler you brought home from the Triple Beard Brewery last night. Better yet, hand them out to the neighborhood kids this Halloween.

“Be sure to get this album into some good headphones, because the production here is really pretty terrific, and it does a great job of drawing out a nice deep bass that adds a significant amount of weight to the overall mood.” ~ A sentence filled with words that a certain someone might possibly attribute to this record. *wink wink*

Did you make through yon riff forest unscathed? “The riff held him fixed, like a museum specimen, 10,000 needles thrust through the chest.”

Wonderful without words, and no words are truly necessary, particularly these damned words right here.

But in case you still need a few, here is a picture of some words, which could be worth a thousand words, or perhaps a thousand words plus however many words happen to be pictured…

Portals and riffs upon riffs and drum fills pounding straight through your skull.

and abysses and melody and atmosphere and

galloping

and stormy, dark

trips into wEiRdnEsS and

we are all connected through our terrible knowledge of an infinite and exotic universe, or is it actually fixed. A severe subject.

And to have our consciousness torn apart in death to drift into the unending cosmosss is maybe just the beginning

And it is better

to have a heart without

words

than

words
words words
words words words words
words words words words words words words words
words words words words words words words word swords words
words words words words words words words words word swords words words  words words words words words words words
words word swords words
words words

without heart

Posted by Captain

Last Rites Co-Owner; Senior Editor; That was my skull!

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